Missouri Bank Artboards

In 2011, Missouri Bank Crossroads Branch debuted new, large-scale commissioned images on its Artboards. Firle's work was installed on the east-facing Artboards, exterior, double-sided billboards rising above the bank, and remained on view from September - December.

Firle’s Artboards take inspiration from the history of public signage and are digitally composed of fragments of other images, in this case fragments of his own paintings. “After considering the history of billboards as a whole, I became intrigued by the older, more hands-on process of wheat pasting and how, once neglected and weathered, they became deteriorated abstractions of the past,” said Firle. “I used this concept in creating my pieces by dissecting older works and then layering newer images on top — basically creating new abstractions of my own work. What started off as a tactile process, painting, was then repurposed into a final digital output.”

About MO Bank "Artboards"

An Art through Architecture "Art Achievement" project, the Missouri Bank "Artboards" launched fall 2008, when the building's existing double-sided billboards were renovated and converted into a highly visible site for work by area artists as part of the bank's purchase and renovation of the building to house its Crossroads Branch, completed by Helix Architecture + Design. Art through Architecture, a partnership of Charlotte Street Foundation and American Institute of Architects-Kansas City, administers the programming of the Artboards in collaboration with a panel of Missouri Bank representatives. Every four months, the boards will display a set of newly commissioned artworks, produced as digital prints on ECO-flex, a new, "green" billboard material.